


Out of Control

by KaranSeraph



Series: It Came From Season Four [3]
Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: A.I. Is A Crapshoot, Cloning Blues, Consent Issues, Daddy Issues, Dancitron, Dark Past, Emotional, Energon, F/M, Freedom Fighting Decepticons, Hurt, Injury Recovery, Light Bondage, Loss, Loss of Limbs, Mild Blood, Residual Self Image, Robot Feels, Robot Sex, Virtual Reality, cyberspace, mild robot gore, walls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2775926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaranSeraph/pseuds/KaranSeraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slipstream finds an injured Soundwave. Facing the potential loss of each other drives them to emotional responses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after a theoretical mid-season 4, Auto-bop homage episode in which Nino & Samantha with members of their S.T.E.A.M. organization discover Soundwave is using Roxy Sparkles and his street racers as forced labor through their machines, with signals originating from Dancitron, where Soundwave houses his lab. When Soundwave reacts violently to S.T.E.A.M., Optimus Prime involves himself on behalf of the humans. With Slipstream lured away from Soundwave's defense by Elite Guard member Jetfire, and no kinder means to restrain one as powerful as Soundwave, Optimus makes the choice to bring the house down on him.
> 
> Written while listening to Anberlin's Lowborn album.

It wasn't her fault! Slipstream unfolded through a slow, painful transformation, as concessions stand debris slid unevenly off her wings and legs. She rocked backward onto her heels, still unfolding arms and head, so that she momentarily stood in walker mode. Around her, she was dimly aware of the humans milling about. Well, they scanned as human.  
  
Slipstream wasn't sure as she stood and looked down at them. These, like those members of S.T.E.A.M., and the street racers were jaded by the presence of Cybertronians, unlike the soldiers who had been in Detroit since Kaon fell to Lake Erie.  
  
"Well, what are you looking at?" she snapped. But the humans dressed up as television aliens, ghosts and demons simply lifted devices to capture her image. "Take off," she groaned.  
  
 _Wingless_ had led her on a chase. And though he was not any more agile in the air than she - his flight lacked nuance and flow without wings and flaps; he was all hot air - Jetfire was narrower. He'd flown through the lobby, while Slipstream had inelegantly crashed into Michigan Central Station Convention Center. And now she had disgusting organic condiments smeared on her glass!  
  
"Fraggin' Autobots!" Let the newsbot quote her on that. When Megatron's trio of cloned Omega Sentinels had attacked Detroit, when Kaon had fallen, Slipstream had helped defend the city. But as soon as catastrophic danger was passed, the little Prime was quick to treat Slipstream and the rest of Detroit's resident bots the way Autobots always treated Decepticons.  
  
She hoped Soundwave had taken Optimus down.  
  
Slipstream brought her comm display onto her HUD and pinged Soundwave. No text or spoken reply came, only a homing signal. He was at Dancitron where she'd left him, stationary. "En route," she sent back, then proceeded to step around the little costumed humans. It was pointless to shoot them, like using a cannon on a retrorat. She was often tempted to kill them with thruster fire, but there wasn't truly any strategic value in doing so. The Decepticons weren't at war with them. The Earth soldiers were at war with Megatron, and Megatron was at war with Sumdac, but the Decepticons as a whole were only at war with the Autobots.  
  
Slipstream twisted herself back through the whole she'd made upon entry. She could hear sirens and synthesized vocalizations of police automatons, but that wasn't too unusual for Detroit. Maybe a little less for this neighborhood. _Time she wasn't here._  
  
Slipstream tested her thrust with a bipedal hover above the avenue, set her course northeast for Downtown Detroit and Dancitron, converted to alt and flew.  
  
~~~~  
  
It was evident from a distance things had not gone in Soundwave's favor. A cloud of smoke and dust rose into the evening sky from the block of warehouses which Dancitron occupied. lightbars flashed in alternating color on backs of lifeless vehicles and police automatons. A few human officers in protective clothing listened to the complaints of neighborhood humans outside the coffee house.  
  
Nothing would come of it. Whose side could the police take? The militant technophobes who destroyed private and publicly owned devices? The street racers with illegally modded cars? The club kids with too-wide eyes? The array of household appliance bots now encircling the converted warehouse to bar entrance to unwelcome visitors? A small team of resident Decepticons who dared to occasionally help save the city then steal a little oil or energon in lieu of payment?  
  
Moral absolutes did not live here.  
  
And those that judged Soundwave for his control issues were able to do so because they had obtained freedom and rights simply by merit of their organic births into this geo-political state. Any lesser or artificial intelligences who self-realized as individuals were exiled to Dinobot Island, or to universities for training.  
  
Autobot of them to seek to exile and reprogram that which was different and only complain when it happened to them.  
  
Slipstream transformed, then hopped right over the crowd of humans as she expended remaining momentum from her descent. A pair of commercial espresso automatons scudded out of her way as she ran toward the larger entrance in the alleyway. Slipstream found much of the masonry of the nightclub's delivery entrance fallen into the doorway and a cloud of concrete dust obscuring optical sensors.  
  
"Soundwave!"          
  
Slipstream extended sharp digits to feel her way through the broken structure. If she spared a klik to calculate, she'd probably determine entering the unstable building risked damage to her shell, but Soundwave was still broadcasting from inside. There was no _question_ she was going to help him.  
  
"Soundwave!" She called again. The dance floor lights were still running in sync with Soundwave's programmed list of dance tracks. The music was distorted, with speakers fallen or knocked out of designed alignment.  
  
Slipstream fired thrusters and hovered; the rubble was too difficult to navigate in Seeker heels. "Answer me! That's an order!"  
  
"Sorry, Baby."  
  
"Oh!" Slipstream gasped and sank to the dance floor dusted with glitter of broken glass. He was in the rubble! And- the tuning was stripped from his voice! "You should have called me for help sooner!"  
  
Slipstream bent, then crawled like some beastformer across the pitted wooden planks. Her own talons seemed to move in pop-lock to the beat as she searched in the light of a fallen strobe fixture. She found Soundwave's rounder digits and held them tightly. "'Wave."  
  
"Here, Commander." He sounded too far away. His hand, when she squeezed it, didn't move at all.  
  
Slipstream ducked her head and pressed her lips together tight. "You're fine, right? But, where are the minions? Are they-?"  
  
"Safe. Sent to the island. Could not let Optimus use Laserbeak, again."  
  
"You don't have to talk," Slipstream told him, and before he could answer, she continued in annoyance, "I know I gave you an order! But that doesn't really mean you have to follow! Not if you don't want to! We're fighting for our freedom and our rights, so-"  
  
"Soundwave: Still Slipstream's to command."  
  
"Idiot!" It was mean, but it was all she could say to him. Soundwave deserved better words. She wanted to be able to say better words, especially now when she outright knew how difficult it was for him to speak without the tuning on his voice. Megatron had designed Soundwaves body to be _his_ , including the voice. That Slipstream's involuntary response to that warlord purr was to feel weak and awestruck just made everything hurt more.  
  
Slipstream realized she was still holding onto Soundwave's detached hand and finally loosed it. She made herself search again, picking at chunks of brick and twisted aluminum studs. "Soundwave," she whispered, "Will I need to remove your kernel?"  
  
There was a lengthy pause before he answered, and Slipstream momentarily feared he was fading and would be lost before she could find him.  
  
"Negative. Shell repair: possible."      
  
"Lockdown should have been here!" She shouted.  
  
"Irrelevant," Soundwave insisted. "Slipstream: here, now."  
  
The debris shifted. In a panic that Soundwave would hurt himself more in effort to reach her, Slipstream dug faster, tossing parts of broken warehouse wall across the cavernous interior, breaking distant, tiny drinking glasses. She didn't stop until Soundwave's intact left hand was free and grasping her gauntlet.  
  
"Adequate."  
  
"Soundwave." He looked horrible, which implausibly also meant beautiful. His mouthplate and visor were both cracked, exposing parts of the faceplate beneath. Megatron had left Soundwave with a terrible choice: show a face as handsome as an inspiring Decepticon warlord, or wear the mask that said he was the warlord's pet turbofox. Soundwave had embraced the mask when he embraced his role as a freedom fighter for robot rights. "Optimus will pay for this."  
  
"Stay."  
  
Slipstream nodded.  
  
"Don't wanna be alone."  
  
"Never!" Why Slipstream could promise this and not say more important words she did not know. "Never! Never!"    
  
Soundwave released her gauntlet, to stroke the length of her right arm with slowly vibrating digits.  
  
"You don't have to," Slipstream said, tensing to avoid feeling too much.  
  
"Want to. If you let me."  
  
"You're hurt." She swatted at his hand to break contact.  
  
"Affirmative." Of course, they both knew this meant emotionally as well as physically compromised. "Grant Permission."  
  
"Soundwave! Why? Your body is not important to me!" Despite her own statement, Slipstream bowed and pressed her faceplate to Soundwave's chest. "You-!"  
  
"Kernel: upgrades body to same state. Soundwave: chooses what his body does. Please Slipstream: my choice."  
  
"You can call me Commander," Slipstream whispered, which were, again, not the words her fragment of a spark wished to express, but what her clone of a glitch programming produced.  
  
"Always," Soundwave promised.  
  
Slipstream lifted her face to him and beheld Soundwave looking back at her with one amber optic glowing from beneath his broken visor. She shifted position, moving just a little closer, lines of her body still perpendicular to where she believed Soundwave to lie half-buried. However long it took - if he wanted her by his side until he completely self-repaired or only until he was strong enough to move to a safer location - she'd stay. "Do _you_ grant permission?" She asked.  
  
"Fully," Soundwave replied, and without the tuning, the slight sigh was evident.  
  
Slipstream bowed again and touched her lips to the thin dermal plating of Soundwave's face. She did not move the broken remnant of his mask, but let it scrape her faceplate as she sought to kiss her loyalest subordinate - her companion - she did not want to hope that he was more, even if they'd spoken promises in absolutes. Slipstream thrilled to feel Soundwave's components moving beneath her in concert.  
  
It was just a kiss, nothing they hadn't done before, although true they'd done so rarely. Just - Perfect. Like a gorgeous sip of rich oil when you were running dry.  
  
"Baby," Soundwave called to her. He never meant weak and little when he said that; it always meant that she made him feel so much he needed to burst into song.  
  
Slipstream didn't have words. She could only show Soundwave - striving forcefully to imbibe his very essence, until she tasted someone's energon. Hers, she knew. No major damage, but merely the result of friction between thin plating and broken armor. Soundwave turned her head with gentle pressure from his good hand. He licked the scrape clean, at which Slipstream could not help but sigh deeply.  
  
"Organic contaminant."  
  
Slipstream laughed. "Didn't stop to wash on the way here."  
  
"Grateful. Commander? Permission reciprocal?  
  
Slipstream hesitated then with too-customary bitterness asked, "What do you think?"  
  
Soundwave smiled. It was unusual to see it, but Slipstream had since learned to hear the slight difference inflection, even through Soundwave's usual autotuning. "Yes!"  
  
"Yes!" Slipstream repeated, which was not the same thing as answering the question. Expressions of consent had always been subtle and contrary with her. Slipstream was aware of it, even if unable to control some of her words. What Slipstream found absolutely frightening about their so-called understanding, was that she sometimes felt some higher power intended for or had made them to be together. Soundwave claimed the fragment of AllSpark inside her sang to him. His ability to detect and interpret electro-magnetic signals was superior.  
  
Why should the one who had the ability to know what was in her spark or her processor have met her by some accident of her helping his pet bat? Why should this one see in her something that made him promise loyalty? Why should Slipstream want Soundwave also to be happy or fulfilled?  
  
She wanted to fly away from how awesome they were and how much they rocked and how terribly smart and powerful they were together.        
   
"Never," she whispered.  
  
"Further physical exertion: inadvisable."  
  
Slipstream smirked, anticipating where this conversation was going. "Use of infrasonics would also be pretty stupid right now."  
  
"Acknowledged. Soundwave: desires connection. Slipstream?" As he said this, Soundwave lifted the stump of his injured right arm and reached with dangling cables to touch Slipstream's canopy glass.    
  
Slipstream gazed at the injured arm, noting self-repair nanites had already stopped bleed-out. Soundwave's red exterior lighting flickered across the arm, like fading optical circuitry, while the real circuitry beneath glowed a steady amber. After a moment, Slipstream nudged his arm away, but only so far as to allow contact with her own arm instead. "Do you believe we are ready?"  
  
"I do."  
  
"You might have to be the one to make the connection." At least it wasn't refusal. They'd tried a hardline connection once before: not for pleasure or intimacy of any sort, but because a project required combined processing power. It hadn't gone well that time, and Slipstream wasn't sure what they felt toward each other now would make enough of a difference. But, she wasn't leaving or fighting.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside Cyberspace, Slipstream and Soundwave's feelings and desires are visualized, but this also means confronting a part of Slipstream she does not wish to acknowledge.

The exterior connection was a simple matter. Slipstream could manage that, telling herself it didn't mean anything on its own. Hardline connecting was a common enough thing. Could be for a mission, or business. She tried to forget that this time wasn't towards any strategic goal and just let Soundwave make the link.  
  
He had one of those quick connect extensions in his gauntlet-door panel, which mean, he knew everything like the back of his hand. Slipstream's body-type wasn't equipped with a reciprocal port, by default, which was, she told herself, probably normal and common. Soundwave pressed the release to pop Slipstream's comm module from the right side of her head, and unspooled enough data cable to complete the connection.  
  
She had no tactile sensors within the comm system, but she could hear her cable unspooling. Slipstream felt the tug toward Soundwave as he wrapped the slack of her cable around his digits. She saw her terminal connectors jack snugly into Soundwave.  
  
Slipstream trembled, talons digging into the debris as she fought against fleeing. It wasn't that she didn't want to be with Soundwave - Spark she did! - it was just that she'd started life as a copy of an insane glitch and her self preservation algorithms were heavily weighted toward flight rather than fight. This was all getting pretty heavy.  
  
"It's cool," Soundwave said.  
  
Slipstream was aware of the countdown on her HUD, prompting her to accept or reject incoming connection. "Can't you just-?"  
  
"Won't," Soundwave said firmly.  
  
"But you could!" Soundwave could assume control of pretty much anything.  
  
"Won't. My choice. Make yours."  
  
"No pressure!" Slipstream shouted. She was being mean again, she knew. She watched the countdown until it timed-out without response. Soundwave didn't complain. He just watched her. "Well, send it again!"  
  
"As many times as it takes."  
  
The countdown appeared again and somehow Slipstream accepted immediately. Faced with Soundwave's infinite patience and desire for connection suddenly this was the easy way out.  
  
A new countdown appeared: ACCESS TO STANDARD CYBERTRONIAN REAL-TIME ELECTRONIC WORKSPACE IN 3...2...1...  
  
~~~~  
  
A great wireframe expanse seemed to appear every side of Slipstream, but neither it nor she were properly here. This was virtual, pure code interpreted as sensory input. Cyberspace, for short A few bits and blocks of stray data hovered nearby, but overall the space was tidy and seemingly endless. Her own consciousness projected into the ether between processors perceived itself as a glowing magenta form; she thought she might be intently studying her claws and so she was, in a manner of speaking.  
  
Her first sense of Soundwave's presence was a distortion of the wireframe itself, like a great curvature of space that cradled her then left her seated on a wireframe barstool. Slipstream didn't perceive the core projection of Soundwave's consciousness until it - he - was right beside her stroking her wing. She felt that, or seemed to.  
  
The feelings were real, because of course it was their two digital entities fuzzing against each other in the ether as their processors underwent various sync, share, and merge protocols.  
  
The novelty of the sensation distracted her miniscule astroseconds - what was time here - so that the form she perceived did not even strike her as odd at first. That or Soundwave had even more influence over cyberspace than she guessed, and she'd guessed a lot!  
  
"What are you doing in that body?" He looked like his holomatter avatar, which Slipstream thought of as an anime-fetish-band-leader-street-dancer-idol-singer.  
  
Soundwave appeared to look down at himself, then pulled up a mirror from the ether with a gesture of a human-like hand, and did a turn in front of his reverse image. "Uncalculated," He admitted finally.  
  
"Maybe I can try mine," Slipstream offered. She didn't use her human avatar on Earth much, but she had a few times when they were helping Lockdown chase a bounty. Soundwave made his appear in Dancitron sometimes, so he could interact more freely with the _oppressors_ , particularly the musicians he pretended not to like.  
  
"Unnecessary," Soundwave said, but the shift had already taken place.  
  
Slipstream was a glowing, magenta, casually-dressed pilot in tall boots and bomber jacket. Sometimes, Slipstream found the human-like expressions harder to read than Soundwave's mouthplate and visor, which should have been odd; he didn't look very happy or interested. "You know I still have the pretty boy one, if you like that."  
  
"Slipstream."  
  
The name seemed to call her back from the shift in projected image. The features of the old Starscream pilot avatar flashed in and out of virtual existence and were replaced for the moment by the copy of Slipstream's avatar that wore full neck-to-toe flight suit.    
  
Some kind of weird cheek stripes and water droplets appeared on Soundwave's face.  
  
"It's not like I mind this one. You made it for me," Slipstream said, wanting to express she liked it. It had let her feel close to Soundwave, then, when she let him alter her facsimile circuitry program via Ratbat and combination of wireless and optical connections. This, now, was so much closer! She wanted to show him-  
  
They were instantly close, amber and magenta figures hovering with legs partially entwined and heads pressed together.  
  
"Embarrassed," Soundwave whispered.  
  
"At least you know what you're doing here!"  
  
"Negative. Preference for human form: misunderstood. Avatar: My design. Association: comfortable, uninhibited, expressive, cool. Not: me."  
  
"You really are an idiot!" Slipstream scolded. Soundwave pretty much embodied "cool", regardless of which shell or avatar he showed the world! "Show me then! If you desire connection so much - if you find fulfillment through sound and data - show me the real you!"  
  
"Slipstream: has already seen." What he showed her was a projection of his kernel: the tiny, toy-like shell that sustained his spark, core processor, and transformation cog, as well as his special gift for assimilation.  
  
"This is just what your kernel looks like," Slipstream said sadly, looking down at the too-tiny rectilinear device in her still-human hands. "You're more than your parts. A toy doesn't wonder at its being or feel pain at being produced according to someone else's design. A toy can't actually love someone back!"  
  
The wireframe world seemed to flex and contract as Soundwave's projection grew right up around Slipstream. The apparent movement caused a temporary sense of dizzying vertigo as Slipstream shifted form at the same time. She alighted on Seeker heels with Soundwave's arms holding her in a firm embrace; he was taller now than he would actually be relative to her shell, even taller than she.  
  
"Baby, you are no one's toy!" Soundwave promised. Either he was tall as Megatron here, or Slipstream was feeling small.  
  
"Neither are you, fool!"  
  
"Groove: back." The apparent tuning on his voice was back, at least virtually, yet Slipstream could hear the smile.  
  
"You really expect me to believe you lost your cool because of- that you were afraid!?"  
  
"Slipstream."  
  
She found herself seated on a wireframe pedestal so quickly she nearly lost her virtual equilibrium. Slipstream saw Soundwave take a knee and just as quickly willed them onto more equal level. Well, she was on a throne, but Soundwave now was about to kiss her hand instead of her foot - a hand she willingly offered.  
  
"Let's see how groovy you are."  
  
Tables turning were a thing. There were wireframe tables turning in the ether around them. "What?"  
  
"I'll pull the Starscream out of you and see what's left," Soundwave said menacingly. At least Slipstream felt menaced. She was being menaced. Maybe she could just disconnect. But, Soundwave was holding her hand so tightly.  
  
"Why can't I leave?"  
  
The sound that followed was playback of Slipstream's own voice, "Never."  
  
"But! You can't actually do that! What would be left!?"  
  
"Let's find out," Soundwave monotoned. He pressed an amber hand to her chest and some darkly magenta-red shadow seemed to ooze out from the seams of Slipstream's canopy. The shadow coalesced beside her until she perceived Starscream standing separate from her.    
  
"Starscream!" she shrieked. She hadn't confronted her creator since she she resurrected him, and she had hoped that would somehow make them even. She'd hoped it would make her feel less connected to the slimeball of a Seeker! "What did you do?"  
  
"I see you're pleasant as usual," Starscream said with thick sarcasm.  
  
"Soundwave: merely guided. Slipstream: created this projection. Deception: necessary."  
  
Slipstream vacated the wireframe throne. Not to surrender it. No! Just to be farther away from Starscream. But, as expected, he took full advantage of the vacancy and sank comfortably into the throne. "Don't mind if I do," he said smarmily.  
  
"Why would I project him here? I can't stand him!"  
  
Soundwave's expression was passive as ever.  
  
"Ow! That's harsh. I am part of you after all. Or, you're part of me." Starscream seemed to shrug. "Same difference.  
  
"Oh! Thank's so much for reminding me!" Slipstream shrieked, "It's not as if I weren't aware of that every nanoklik of my existence! Loser! It's no wonder Thundercracker rationalizes himself to be the original or Ramjet just claims to be!"  
  
"Your gift for flattery is astounding," Starscream smirked.  
  
"Shut up!"  
  
"Please. Tell me how you really feel."  
  
Soundwave stepped in, his glowing form stepping in toward the throne to loom over Starscream. "Can we play with him, Commander?" He touched a thick digit to Starscream's pointed chin and tipped his head just so. Slipstream was afraid they were going to kiss. It didn't help that Starscream showed that lecherous leer that she hated. Spark she hated that leer!  
  
"Don't!"  
  
"Starscream: part of you. Would be like playing with you. You're the same."  
  
Slipstream shrank in size. Her projection flickered. She saw an exit option appear. At the same time, Starscream appeared smug, as if he'd won something, and suddenly had a pair of stasis cuffs spinning from one long talon. That did it! She was not going to cave and let him win! She would fight.  
  
"He's no part of me! I am Slipstream. I am your commander, Soundwave. And if you hope to remain in my command you will cease entertaining him."  
  
"As you wish," Soundwave said, and Slipstream sensed a slight hint of amusement in his autotuned voice, "Commander." He deftly snatched the stasis cuffs from Starscream, who gave a petulant huff. "Do you wish me to restrain him?"  
  
"Be sure to use a gag," Slipstream said with disgust. She turned her back, catching a gagged Starscream in the periphery of her vision as she looked into the expanse of the wireframe. Eventually Soundwave stepped to her side and Slipstream knew Starscream was gone.  
  
"I know it was difficult for you," she said, "but I'm grateful to have been deceived."  
  
Soundwave spoke, tuning dropped from his voice. He sounded apologetic. "Your patch has established a workaround for the glitch, but I cannot tell you whether it is permanent."  
  
Slipstream turned herself in the space in order to look on Soundwave faceplate-to-faceplate. They again appeared to be their natural respective heights. She lay her hands to his shoulders and smiled. "It's not like I'm going to suddenly be sappy all the time! But, I need you to hear me right now. I want you with me, Soundwave, and I want to be with you."  
  
"Feelings: mutual. Commander."  
  
Slipstream saw a virtual dialogue box before her. Continue to the next step? Their cyberspace interaction had synchronized their processors in preparation for a potential merge. They could go back. They could remain to work. But, now, there was the choice to be together on another level. "Permission?" she asked.  
  
Soundwave lifted his hands to her hips. "Slipstream: has all access pass."  
  
"The same," Slipstream said, then corrected herself, "I mean, yes. I-I want to merge with you." It took effort. She had to make herself say it, but the important thing was that she had the words!  
  
Their projections grew indistinct as they merged in a hazy orange glow, and the wireframe seemed to fade into the rendering of memory.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short, final chapter in which Slipstream and Soundwave are one, and normalcy is restored.

They were one: a private network of intimately interconnected processors and shared data spanning the dual core hardware of a binary system which expanded into the ether on electromagnetic tendrils.

 

They descended through blue-tinged memory, like snapshots seen through the cool filter of retrospection.

 

The divine touch of the AllSpark: the spark of life from its key.

 

The gravid thrill of assimilation: the heat of atmospheric entry.

 

The blow from the wrecker-bot that breaks one into component parts: using Bulkhead’s own stasis cuffs to put him in bondage.

 

Accepting Megatron’s commands, then assuming control of the body he meant for his own: disarming Megatron with a shot from behind, then accepting his commands.

 

Suffering a blow from Optimus Prime, with their own guitar: shooting the flight-envious Autobot out of the sky.

 

A flight to Mexico to escape bounty: a flight in Laserbeak’s talons to Tigatron Stadium.

 

Las Dias de los Muertos: Detroit on Devil’s Night.

 

Starscrean: Megatron.

 

A shared family built on voluntary kinship.

 

However far the rabbit-hole went, they traversed if as one. There was no painful memory nor uncovered secret that could not quickly be counterbalanced by another. Their neural sync rocked!

 

Consciousness merged. Communication took place in internal machine code, exchange of memory, queued emotional subroutines, and logs of accessed and altered data tracks.

 

Access was rapid, immediately following permissions, like a rushed, clumsy grope over exposed, optical circuitry. Emotional subroutines fired off like automatic rounds: urgent desire for intimacy, realization and acceptance of trust, ease, bliss, willingness to please.

 

Broad, sweeping file access gave way to precise manipulation of data. Sequential opening of every one of Slipstream’s back-up installation files, followed by a second opening and closing of each, spoke an afficianado’s appreciation for the elegance and efficiency of her internal data management. In turn, a series of blatant search and find functions was performed on Soundwave’s lyric journal, then followed by tentative edits. A character was altered and then restored from stored data. In response a copy of Slipstream’s avionics database was made and assimilated into Soundwave’s installation files. Several of Soundwave’s song lyrics were edited and their saved as new files using the suffix “remix”.

 

A coy edit of Soundwave’s personal scheduler included a repeating task with the title Polish Wings. In return, Slipstream received notification from her own scheduler that she was among attendees for the polishing. A flurry of virtual notes and To Do items followed with innocuous titles: Maintenance, Stellar-cycle Review, Officers’ Meeting, and Jam Session; all coded to show status as Busy or Do Not Disturb.

 

Emotional subroutines triggered rapidly in response to changes that took nano-cycles to make: amusement, awe, impression, entertainment, anticipation, gratitude, willingness, love.

 

They fed each other false sensor data, until they saw colors that occurred so rarely they triggered automatic diagnostic responses. Audio receptors were filled by a facsimile of harmonic thump and hum. Conjoined sensor-nets sang with peaks and troughs of pleasure-pain.

 

The physical began to assert itself through their exchange of self-generated signals. Still one, talons lifted a severed arm to waiting self-repair systems. Status reports and diagnostic logs were accessed.

 

Slipstream was the first to begin the slow withdraw from their merged state. She tried to ease then parting with a series of shared memories: intimacies shared in the confines of a decontamination chamber, a music lesson, a kiss, a reunion after danger.

 

Though they remained physically connected, Soundwave’s individual consciousness also reasserted itself, and he sent out a wireless request for connection. Slipstream accepted the request for wireless memory file sync, even as she carefully pulled her hardwire data cables from Soundwave’s port. Soundwave sent a burst of timecode data via the wireless connection, as if to request confirmation that they had just done what he thought they had done.

 

Slipstream did her best to reassure her lover with physical caress of Soundwave’s healing shell. He seemed slower to acknowledge they existed as separate, physical entities than Slipstream. She felt heat and electricity radiate from Soundwave, as if he manipulated his own energy field and signature in order to reach her, to touch and communicate with her. And though Slipstream could detect the energy, she was uncertain how to respond or whether she was even capable of conscious control of her AllSpark fragment or the energies it radiated.

 

If Soundwave was saying he wanted access to her shard of a spark, Slipstream wasn’t ready to allow it. “It’s not as if we don’t have dates scheduled!” She complained.

 

Soundwave pushed himself up from the rubble and wrapped intact arms about Slipstream’s neck, loosing the lost length of her data cable to return to her comm module. “Your participation: appreciated as always, Commander.”

 

Slipstream smiled as she gazed down at the knitting surface of Soundwave’s visor and mouthplate. “Do you know how much I appreciate that you say that?”

 

“’Commander’ or that I pretend our dalliance is one purely of convenience or recreation?”

 

Slipstream bowed to touch he forehead to Soundwave’s. “Yes!” She said, which didn’t exactly answer the ‘or’ question, except that she really did mean both were true. They’d spectacularly managed to fall into the same trap as their creators. She’d gone and made her second-in-command her lover. Was she supposed to admit it, too? “Don’t expect me to treat you any different.”

 

“Never.” Yet as he toned the word, Soundwave transmitted timecode data over their wireless connection. The corresponding memory played within Slipstream’s processor: fading, falling through blue-tinted memory; a memory of a memory. It evoked, without external prompting, the sense of connection and oneness they’d so recently shared.

 

Slipstream queued a memory of her own: standing with Soundwave in the wireframe expanse of Cyberspace, ‘It's not like I'm going to suddenly be sappy all the time! But, I need you to hear me right now. I want you with me, Soundwave, and I want to be with you.’

 

“Acknowledged, Commander.” Then, after a beat, “I need some space.”

 

Slipstream heard the smile behind Soundwave’s words and understood his meaning. She pushed himself up from their bed of rubble and took several steps back, across the dancefloor.

 

Soundwave cleared the rubble from his legs with an infrasonic boom. He flexed his limbs physically, and then tested his sonic equipment further by assuming control of the Dancitron music and lighting. Janitor automatons appeared as if from nowhere to clean the rubble.

 

Normalcy was reinstated and Slipstream realized she was standing in a spotlight decorated in coating of organic condiments, concrete dust, and broken glass. “Don’t suppose you have anything like wash facilities here?” As long as she’d been on Earth, Slipstream still had to resort to combination of river water and auto-care products to maintain her appearance. It seemed somewhat awkward to mention it after they’d been so close.

 

“Association with organic oppressors has revealed location of street racers’ garage.”

 

Slipstream smirked, “Sounds like it’s time for some unscheduled maintenance.”

 

“As you wish, Commander.”


End file.
